A father of a school boy has slammed a primary school in Harlow for "publicly humiliating" children with their new disciplinary procedure which makes pupils "wear bibs and clean up lunch mess".

The concerned parent disagrees with the "community order" type policy adopted at Jerounds Primary School on Pyenest Road.

He claims children have been reduced to tears after being made to clear up other people's lunches in a coloured bib.

The worried father, whose son attends Jerounds, but would like to remain anonymous, said: "From what I have heard, a couple of boys in my son's school who had been misbehaving were given a community service like punishment.

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"They are made to wear bright red bibs and they have to tidy up the lunches of other children and they eat last. It's absolutely disgraceful.

"I know a few of the boys have felt humiliated, they have started crying, they just felt embarrassed.

"I agree that if a child misbehaves that they should be punished, but not like this in such a horrible way. If that happened to my son, I would go straight to the school."

In an OFSTED report last year, the school was rated inadequate with leadership and management an area that needs to be improved on.

The school have defended their actions

The parent continued: "This punishment is applicable to Year 1 students, so five-year-old children have been in tears because of this. I think this is a desperate attempt by a failing school to grasp at control.

"I think it has been in force since January but this is the first public humiliation we have heard of. Two people say their children have come home crying about it.

"One of the boys didn't want to wear the bib and he was told he had to wear it.

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"It's demeaning, embarrassing, degrading, humiliating and it's almost singling them out and saying that they're a criminal.

"What the school used to do is if a child had been misbehaving, they would have to walk around the playground holding the hand of a teacher which is still embarrassing but I think it is a lot better than this.

"I think this is humiliating and will damage any child's self-esteem."

The school said it is a "shame" that their methods have been misunderstood and claims it is a way of "giving back to the school" when they have wasted valuable teaching time.

Laura Ciftci, Head of School at Jerounds Primary School, said: “Our new behaviour policy promotes and rewards good behaviour, but when children have wasted teaching or learning time we ask them to address this by giving back to the school, rather than punishing them.

“There are lots of ways they can do this - for example, helping tidy up at lunchtime, collecting litter or helping at social events.

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"They do these activities with supervision and would never be made to sit and eat by themselves.

"The children wear coloured bibs for some of these activities and a variety of others, such as being playground leaders. This is not to single them out, but helps our staff identify them so they can provide the relevant support.

“Our behaviour policy is something that we wanted to introduce to help the children appreciate the school and its environment.

"It is a shame there has been a misinterpretation of our successful work to tackle behaviour, but I am more than happy to discuss how it works and how it benefits the school with anyone from our school community.”